Plea that Prophet Kacou Philippe wrote in his prison cell on May 29, 2016.
1 This is the plea that I, Prophet Kacou Philippe, had written in my prison cell on May 29, 2016, before the first appearance in the Court of First Instance of Abidjan.
2 Your Honour, after I stayed down in 6th grade, I got expelled in 9th grade, in 1988. And in April 1993, while I was serving as a worker on a construction field, I received three supernatural appearances which showed me that a time would come when I would be preaching what I do not know and men of all the races of the earth would believe in that to be saved. It is because of this mission that I am in prison.
3 Your Honour, I preached my Message from 2002 to 2014 in 124 sermons, which are contained in a book published in France. The Message is in French, in English, in Spanish, in Portuguese, in Swahili and in Tamil. It is spread by every means of communication (Radio, television, newspapers, flyers, and open-air preachings …).
4 There was a time when several people of divers countries made some caricatures of me, calling me a sect, a false prophet, a spiritual terrorist and that became general against me but I did not say anything and those who delivered me into your hands today, were amongst them.
5 Your Honour, faced with their attacks against my person, I cannot say anything, because even if the minister of Justice is my believer, I cannot take this matter to court because it is a purely religious matter. When my daughters tell me about how they are mocked by their friends at school, I tell them: “They make caricatures of everyone, even the presidents, the kings, Mahomet and the pope. You, my children, overcome that because, in all your life, it will be thus.” And I think that it was in response to that that my believers also made caricatures of those people.
6 As soon as my believers reacted, all the pastors who were attacking me deleted all their posts against me. Amongst them are the general secretary of the Protestant and evangelical commission of Ivory Coast and the woman Jezebel Monney who calls herself prophetess.
7 Your Honour, before God, they cannot say that what I am saying is false. That woman Jezebel that I do not know called me a false prophet, a jihadist and a spiritual Boko Haram because I preached that women must not preach in a church because of their menses.
8 Today, those servants of Baal, such as this Jezebel, deleted all of the posts they made against me and went to file a complaint against me, whom they had insulted and who did not respond to their insults.
9 They never called my attention and tell me what my believers did. And none of the different divisions of the police they referred to asked them whether they ever called my attention to the actions of my believers.
10 The State should not act this way by unjustly putting me in prison. A secular country acting this way towards a prophet, it is a religious persecution and an infringement of freedom of expression. This is why I call this trial false and unjustified. I am guilty of nothing.
11 Whether I am released or condemned, I reject any verdict of the tribunal and I request that all of this be brought to the attention of the whole earth. In 325, when Christianity was tearing itself apart, Emperor Constantine did not summon the Council of Nicaea to put anyone in prison.
12 And it is not the role of a secular State to interfere in a religious matter of this kind. This is a shameful trial and I am imprisoned by a group of pastors because there is no human rights on earth.
13 From my abduction without a warrant and my detention for seven days before being transferred, the State has been trying to transform a purely religious matter into a civil case for other reasons: make the woman Jezebel and the prophet of Baal happy for political and religious interests.
14 And during the different questionings, the State does not know when I am a religious man and when I am a citizen.
15 And when I ask why I am arrested; they tell me that it is not because of me but because of my believers who would have made some caricatures on the internet.
16 And when I say: “Who are my accusers?” They say that it is the Public Prosecution. I say: “Alright but does the law say that one can be punished for another person’s fault?” They do not answer me.
17 And I am told that I should not receive religious personalities from divers countries like a president and that it is a crime against the State’s security. And yet, in 2008, I was forbidden from travelling and I never travelled. How should I do therefore, while I am now deprived of all my rights including that to talk about God?
18 It was argued that I was the one who taught my believers to act that way and I must go to prison for that. And I said: “Alright but was it the Lord Jesus Christ who taught Peter to cut Malchus’ ear?”. And I asked to the prosecutor: Should Mahomet go to hell for the actions of the jihadists?”
19 And after the scientific police division, I should be taken to a central police district, but when they heard that some people arrested overnight in the “operation sparrow hawk”, were headed to the police headquarters, Lieutenant Desailly sent me there and they put me in the basement where I suffered terribly for two days.
20 There was no more room in the cell of the whole basement. It was extremely overcrowded. And the prisoners would shout: “No more room! No more room!” And prisoners were still brought in and people collapsed because of the heat.
21 At first, a person who had asthma collapsed because of the heat; then another person, then another… and then they took the prisoners out of the cell except me. From the outside, one could feel the heat and the gas that emanated from the basement.
22 I said in my heart: Lord Jesus Christ my Saviour, here I am, dying here. When I am no longer on earth, do not let the children of the devil sing my name as they do it for your servant William Branham. For, a prophet, it is when he is alive that one needs to believe in him and follow him.
23 And in the suffering I estimated the remaining years I could have to live on earth and I found them too long. You see? Sometimes it always happens that I think “oh God! How much time do I have to spend again on earth? Because of persecutions of parents, the village, of Catholic, Protestant, evangelical and Branhamist churches? Because of persecutions of earth, of police, of courts and all that! “Oh, prophets so suffered on earth! Paul could say “death is for me a gain”. And I could understand Paul, I could understand Jeremiah, Isaiah and all the prophets. Every day, despite the food and all before me, my soul yearns for something else, another life, which is not that of the earth.
24 And on Friday May 20th, very early, some other police officers came to extract me from there, handcuffed me and sent me to the prosecutor’s head office.
25 When I arrived at the prosecutor’s office, I was told that a prosecutor would hear me to see whether I should be sent to prison or be released. But I was taken straight to prison without any hearing. I was only made to sign a paper which I did not read. And that day, Apostle Martin came and found me in the waiting room, I still had handcuffs on the wrists. Brothers, that was difficult. But a day comes when we will forget all those things, and we shall have an eternal joy and I shall be with you and with the Lord. Amen!
26 And I heard people saying that day, at the request of the evangelical churches, the State must sacrifice me and in return, they will give their support to the State. And this because of my Message which disturbs them.
27 I who never interfered in politics, I am the one who should be sacrificed for the Muslim government and the churches to reconcile?
28 And I heard that I should be condemned to a heavy sentence and then I should be transferred to a prison very far from Abidjan to be isolated. Alright but can you have someone imprisoned in the name of Jesus Christ and then to which God will you pray? You see?
29 Everything they wrote against me on the internet, they deleted it but it will always be engraved on the wall of God in Heaven till the day of the last judgment.
30 For political reasons, the government applied directly their wish, by persecuting me and by throwing me in prison amongst criminals and some murderers.
31 It is a false trial for if a football player strikes another football player on a football pitch, can that be taken to court? Only another reason can justify such sufferings and this trial against me.
32 But a day is coming when we will be before another judge and the money of Jezebel and of the prophets of Baal will not be able to corrupt anyone.
33 Your Honor, apart from this, concerning everything I have preached and which is contained in my book, such as the fact that all the religious denominations on earth are of the devil and that a woman cannot preach before men, I will support it till my death.
34 And if it is for this that I have so suffered, I thank God because I am a prophet like those of the Bible and prison is the baptism and the cup of great prophets of God.
35 And this has to happen but woe to all those by whom it happens. Your posterities will not be anything on the earth because the money of the crime against a prophet always carries a curse of which you, your children and the children of your children will suffer the effects in perpetuity.
36 Your Honour, when I saw that I was accused of defiance of the State authority, of incitement to religious hatred and of religious radicalism, I wondered, for what other charge would the Lord Jesus Christ be crucified if he came back on earth today?
37 I asked myself, for what other reason were 68,000,000 Christians indicted and killed in the history of the Church? And I asked myself, will Christians who were put to death for making caricatures of the popes go to hell? Will John Calvin go to hell for the Treatise on Relics? If they go to hell, we shall go to hell. But if they go to Paradise, I and mine shall go to Paradise. And our faith rests upon it.
38 Attacking the devil whatever the manner, it cannot be against the will of God. It can never be against the will of God. Attacking a woman in menses who stands at the pulpit, attacking a woman in menses who stands at the altar; it can never be against the will of God and it can never be it.
39 Your Honor, everything I preached since July 8, 2002 and which is contained in my book, it is in the virtue of the divine mission that I received on April 24th, 1993 that I preached it. And till my death, I will never accept that some losers will transform the Bible into a trade item and poor souls into clients. It is my mission and I have never obliged anyone to accept it.
40 A Christian or a Muslim cannot condemn me because I say that I am the only true prophet of God on the earth today because it is the way and the language of all prophets of God.
41 There is not a single prophet who did not say that he was the only prophet of God in his generation. And unlike Mahomet, I did never take a sword to wage a holy war. South Africa never imprisoned Ahmed Deedat.
42 And for me, all these sufferings since my abduction, my persecution and my detention by the police of the general intelligence services where I remained seated for five days and five nights sitting on a chair, the traumatization by the scientific police division, the nights in the basement of the police headquarters, the cells of the prosecutor’s office and now the biggest prison of Abidjan, it is the history of the prophets repeating itself.
43 I have already forgiven you. In my prison cell, I asked myself a thousand questions. Has God become Satan and now it is Abel in prosecutor’s clothing who persecutes Cain? And is it the disciples of Lord Jesus who deliver the Pharisees and false prophets to courts and to Roman soldiers contrarily to the recommendations of the Lord Jesus. I did not understand.
44 And if my book incited religious hatred, why did a French publisher publish it and the “Librairie de France” sold it in Ivory Coast?
45 Everything I suffered, I will take it before Him that sent me on April 24, 1993. But as for me, I will not harm anyone.
46 When I was a little boy, playing in the dust, I said to my parents that, till my death, I would never harm anyone, I would never fight with anyone and I would never take anyone to police and it is not now that I am a Christian that I will do it. I shall never hurt someone! I can even not do it! You see?
47 And I asked that copies of this letter be given to the press and every institution of law. And that was done and this text was published in its integrality on the internet and even in international newspapers.
48 Those are the words that I wrote for my defense from my cell of the MACA, the biggest prison of Abidjan on May 29, 2016.